Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Coalition dead

Civic Platfrom (PO) has ruled out the possibility of a coalition with election winners, Law and Justice (PiS), citing irreconcilable differences on everything except cutting taxes and keeping gay people from getting married. Since there are some other important issues to deal with, such as unemployment, health care, poverty and infrastructure, they decided that they would do the honorable thing, and join the opposition.

PiS promptly elected Marek Jurek of their own party as Speaker of the Sejm, and ex-hogfarmer potato-thrower ultra-populist Andrzej Lepper of Self-defense (SO) as Vice Speaker.

This is going from bad to worse, it's literally quite scary.

7 Comments:

I think the Duck's victory is quickly shaping up as a catastrophic success. Had he run a more honourable campaign he would have lost and his party would have a lot less problems forming a coalition with PO (and the prosident's position isn't that big a plum, anyway).

Instead, his race-to-the-bottom pandering to the worst elements of Polish politics (initials: AL and LPR) got him elected and now he faces the prospect of a minority government that will have to depend on said worst elements, one of which, (hint: AL) cannot be trusted for a second. Oh yeah, and he faces the possibility of Poland becoming the laughing stock and pariah of Europe, a prospect most Polish people will not find edifying.

Still, I would be hesitant to completely bury the prospects of a PiS/PO government, statements of stalemate and all-hope-is-lost are often enough followed by pragmatic dealmaking here.

Exactly right, I'm actually really happy to hear that PO doesn't want to form a coalition with PiS. Let everyone know that these initiatives are coming from the minority which includes AL. Bringing that guy into the fold is simply disgusting.

I agree with what bialynia said here and on the blog. This will be good for PO when it all collapses around PiS's ears. However, this will take a long time and, by then, Polish economy and its "good" name will be smuged. All I can hope for now, is a short government (PiS and other political morons in coalition) and a new set of parliamentary elections within the next two years.

Involving Lepper is a dangerous step, but one in which the ex-boxer, ex-thug shoots himself in the foot. Maybe even literally.